Boeing Engineer Arrested for Spying

"He spied for his home country out of love for "the motherland" rather than from a desire to get rich."

Another spy arrested.

Again, for giving secrets to China.

This time, it's "exposed trade secrets from the space shuttle, the Delta IV rocket and the C-17 military transport aircraft."

The Justice Department is reporting that former Boeing engineer Dongfan “Greg” Chung, 72, of Orange, Calif was arrested on espionage charges early this morning. The indictment contends that Chung a former Rockwell employee, and subsequently Boeing engineer sold or gave secrets concerning the Space Shuttle to the Peoples Republic of China (PRC).

The press release claims that Chung was arrested without incident at his home in California.

The indictment, which apparently was finalized last Wednesday accuses Chung of eight counts of economic espionage, one count of conspiracy to commit economic espionage, one count of acting as an unregistered foreign agent without prior notification to the Attorney General, one count of obstruction of justice, and three counts of making false statements to FBI investigators.

The 72-year-old Chung was involved with the Space Shuttle up until his retirement in 2002, however he was brought back as a consultant until 2006.

The indictment alleges that he took and concealed Boeing trade secrets relating to the Space Shuttle, the C-17 military transport aircraft and the Delta IV rocket while employed on the project. Chung allegedly obtained the materials for the benefit of the PRC.

According to Thomas P. O'Brien, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, "He spied for his home country out of love for "the motherland" rather than from a desire to get rich."

If found guilty, Chung can expect to live out the rest of his days behind bars: each of the major counts carries a 15-year prison term.

He was expected to make a brief appearance in court yesterday or today.

The Chinese have made War in Space a top priority and have experimented over the last year with methods of knocking out U.S. satellites, rendering America "electronically blind" in any confrontation with the People's Republic.

At least the authorities have caught this spy.

How many are walking around free?

UPDATE: 3 others have also been charged with spying. From AFP:

A US defense official, an ex-Boeing engineer and two others were charged Monday with spying for China involving sensitive military and aerospace secrets, including on the space shuttle.

The four were linked to two espionage conspiracies, which the US Justice Department said posed a "grave danger" to national security.

Pentagon official Gregg William Bergersen, Chinese citizen Yu Xin Kang and Taiwan-born US citizen Tai Shen Kuo were accused of passing classified information to China, mostly pertaining to US military sales to Taiwan, according to Justice Department officials.

Bergersen, 51, is a weapons systems policy analyst at the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which implement the US Defense Department's foreign military sales program.